Trenton Kanitz, '19

Why did you choose to come to UMR? I chose to come to UMR because of the small class sizes and excellent faculty-to-student ratio. The academic rigor was also appealing since it has better prepared me for graduate school. Beyond that, the proximity to Mayo Clinic is a plus.

What did your Capstone experience at UMR involve? My Capstone experience encompassed leadership and how that would serve me as a future health care administrator. For example, I worked as a Health Unit coordinator at Mayo Clinic, led the UMR intramural volleyball program and earned a management minor through the University of Minnesota Crookston.

How did your Capstone experience prepare you for your future in what you’re currently doing? As a future health care administrator, I am taking a leadership role within the health care field. Through my experience I got a good taste of how a health system works, what it's like to organize and run a program and relevant business and ethics principles through my minor classes. The main lesson I learned from these experiences is that someone like me who will not have direct patient contact can still make a positive difference in the patient experience.

What are you currently doing? After obtaining a Masters of Health Administration degree with academic merit from the University of Miami, I currently work at Monarch Healthcare Management as an Associate Administrator.

Was there a faculty member that positively impacted your time at UMR and how? While I was at UMR, there were many faculty members that positively impacted my experience. If I were to name one in particular, that would be Dr. Bruenger. He was someone that supported me as a student not only in his classes but other classes as nearly all UMR classes are writing intensive. He then was able to support me during my Capstone as someone to bounce ideas off of, practice my presentation with and gather advice from both professionally and personally.